Thanks a lot nuts, that's all very helpful. I agree totally about hand 1 now, I think my lack of confidence since moving up to 50NL and not getting the results I wanted has killed my instinct in spots like this.

Hand 2: Should we just be c/f the turn if he bets again after we call flop and just be checking back trying to get to showdown if he checks, since we're good a lot of the time.